League Client

[figurines]

Would it be possible to create a client strictly for this league that is difficult or impossible to modify?

I know there's tons of problems with this idea, but you can see what I'm getting at and as much as I appreciate idea bashing as the next guy I'd prefer POSITIVE comments aimed towards helping put everyone on the same equal playing field.

Thanks,

Fig

[blast]

Would it be possible to create a client strictly for this league that is difficult or impossible to modify?

I know there's tons of problems with this idea, but you can see what I'm getting at and as much as I appreciate idea bashing as the next guy I'd prefer POSITIVE comments aimed towards helping put everyone on the same equal playing field.

Thanks,

Fig

No. Please read the many other topics that cover this sort of thing already.

EDIT: adding some links I found from a basic search, so there's more here besides that, plus it's been discussed in IRC many times before as well
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=14242
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13076
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=14053
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6388
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5954

[figurines]

Thanks Blast for completely blowing me off I appreciate that.

Next time feel free to be polite and nice...

Obviously I'm aware that other people have talked about this but I'm bringing it up here and now for a reason...Why? Because this consolidation is based on getting more activity...LOTS of the players I've talked to didn't quit all video games, but did stop playing BZFLAG...Why? Because there is no measure to tell if you were beaten by a player with more skill or a player with a "better" client...So that's why I'm bringing this up because if we don't want BZ to simply DIE we need to do something drastically different.

Feel free to lock this one...

Thanks,

Fig

[blast]

Blowing you off? I did your research for you. You just seem to be incapable of reading. It's already been said what needs to be done to solve the problem (including when I recently told you what needs to be done[1]). I'm not going to rehash the same thing over and over again.

[1] http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php? ... 50#p170040

[figurines]

Thanks for your polite reply...oh wait you decided to be unhelpful again.

I STILL think that this is the proper time to either do something about it or resign ourselves to the fact that this "league consolidation" is going to do exactly what every new league has done-get a bit of activity and then dwindle down.
League consolidation is a great step towards what BZFlag needs to pick up some new gamers, maybe attract some older ones to return, but it's a band aid on a bullet wound from a tank shell.

And so I say to myself...while the BZFlag community is feeling open minded and paying attention let's discuss changing enough about the game to actually make it different.

Perhaps it's worth discussing this again (since ALL of those links you sent me occur before 2010)...maybe with the intent of going towards a closed source release? If we don't do something along these lines (or any lines at all) the game literally has no hope of attracting newer players, let alone bringing old players back or keeping existing players.

Stay the same=dying
Changing=hope

Thanks,

Fig

P.S. After 13 years of this game I've never ONCE opened the config file on my game, so clearly it's possible to enjoy a closed source equivalent.

[blast]

A closed source client for GU was already discussed in private a while back. There's only one person that could allow a closed source version of BZFlag. The copyright holder. Not the devs, not some league officials, not the players. And it won't be something I will be a part of, and that is probably the sentiment of some of the other devs as well.

A league client was also attempted a while back using the concept of a closed source module that an open-source client would link to (since LGPL allows linking to closed-source libraries), but that never really got anywhere either from what I recall, even with one of the main developers assisting.

Anyways, I think you're completely missing the point of what I am saying. I am not saying that we should stay the same. The game needs to change to survive, but not in the way you are suggesting. The server needs to be made smarter, and there's no way around that... But that is a huge task that can't be easily broken up into smaller tasks since it requires a complete re-architecture of the code. The server needs to be able to simulate the game world as accurately or better than the clients and do so in a way that allows it to know if a client is following the game rules.

[Monster]

"LOTS of the players I've talked to didn't quit all video games, but did stop playing BZFLAG...Why? Because there is no measure to tell if you were beaten by a player with more skill or a player with a "better" client...So that's why I'm bringing this up because if we don't want BZ to simply DIE we need to do something drastically different."

True, but sometimes I am afraid that the prospect of fair competition would trigger even more players to quit BZ.